I have never been so unhappy to be right. I've long said that Barack Obama would win re-election, and a few weeks ago I stated as much in print. In making this prediction, I was almost alone among traditionalist pundits, with some, such as Dick Morris (Mr. Batting Zero), actually forecasting a Mitt Romney landslide. And, no, I'm not pointing this out to numb despair with some perverse kind of gloating, like a man consumed in flames looking to suck on an ice cube. It's because of why I knew that Romney would lose: America is lost. And there is something to be found, but not unless good people understand what truly lies ahead.

America is heading toward a dark winter. Of course, I can't give you a Mayan-like prediction of a precise time of reckoning; details are always sketchy, which is why I wasn't entirely right on the micro of the election. But this is much like how it's difficult to predict the weather for two Wednesdays from now, but easy to forecast cold in February. And of our civilization's overall weather pattern, there is no doubt. Now let's discuss what prevents conservatives from seeing the clouds on the horizon.

Rationalization

Many conservatives probably knew better in their hearts than to predict a Romney win, but just couldn't come to terms with the depressing reality of a second Obama term. Rationalization is common among man; it's how we avoid unwelcome truths. But it also blinds us to danger. Just think, for instance, of Jews who saw their coming winter in 1930s Germany and emigrated; then think of those who didn't because they couldn't face reality. This is how dangerous rationalization can be.

Likewise, for years I and a few others have been warning that fighting in the political arena while losing the culture is like trying to grow beautiful leaves on a tree whose roots are beset by steady rot. Sure, we may win some battles, but they're merely a rightward movement of deck chairs on a ship steadily drifting left. Yet even when this phenomenon's specifics are explained to simplicity, they're often rationalized away by conservatives. Most would rather talk about Obama this and Romney that, about how we just, by gum, need a real conservative. But this is for naught without a real conservative electorate. We can't elect a better government when we've bred a worse people.

And just as I knew Obama would win last night, I'm quite sure of something else.

No truly "conservative" Republican will ever win nationally again.

Ever.

(Don't click that mouse and grab the hemlock, because there is hope. I'll get to that later.)

But let's start with a simple fact: Mitt Romney is a photogenic, articulate, moderate Republican who was up against a scandal-ridden leftist radical presiding over a listing economy and foundering foreign policy. Still he couldn't win.

Or, I should say, voters chose to lose.

Because what the American people were before, they are no more.

I know, I know. The media deceived the citizenry. Romney started playing not to lose instead of to win. There was vote fraud. There was that storm and Chris Christie playing Misty for Mr. Limp Wristy.

Rationalization.

Oh, it's not that the above isn't true. But no candidate is tactically perfect; Obama certainly made his share of mistakes. There also will inevitably be unforeseen events during any campaign, and they don't matter when enough people can distinguish good from evil. And the left does steal hearts and minds through the media and votes through electoral sleight-of-hand, but this merely reflects our cultural decay. And it's only getting worse.

If You Can't Get Elected, Appoint a New People

This variation on a Bertolt Brecht line gets at our problem. And our new people has been forged via both importation and domestic production.

While conservatives complain about illegal migration — ever more tepidly — I've been warning that it was merely an exacerbation of a larger problem: legal immigration, through which statists have been importing reliably socialist voters. This I have explained thoroughly over and over and over and over and over and over again, yet most conservatives won't touch the issue. This is partially due to "immigrationism," dogma stating that immigration must be a permanent and unquestioned fixture of American life (death?); partially due to pundit cowardice; and partially due to rationalization. After all, immigration is here to stay, we think, so better to shunt its scary implications to the mind's recesses, where the rest of the wild things are.

But I'll make this simple: remember the pre-election stories about how Obama was wildly popular overseas? The English are enchanted, the French are all aflutter, Indonesia is infatuated, and Kenya is kvelling. Obama isn't foreign to foreigners, and do you think this will change because the foreigners come here? Just as with religion, people bring their ideology with them. And unless you think you could talk a Muslim jihadist out of Islam, why suppose you could talk a socialist out of socialism?

The world's consensus political orientation is no surprise, mind you. Note that nascent, adolescent, and young adult America was the rarest of anomalies, as man's historical default is tyranny. And as geriatric America has proven, it's difficult enough instilling the mindset that birthed her into the native born, never mind those who come here in the hardened clay of adulthood. Having said this, there is a reason why we are being, as Alan Keyes put it, "colonized…."

"Israel hath cast off the thing that is good; the enemy shall pursue him.They have reigned, but not by me: they have been princes, and I knew not…."— Hosea 8:3-4

As a people's morality goes, so go its fortunes. You simply cannot be one kind of people but have another kind of government (see "Written in the Eternal Constitution"). And what has happened to our sense of virtue in America? So lost it is that even the word has been replaced with "values," that fixture of the atheistic literary style. For decades we have instilled children with leftism, nihilism, hedonism, relativism, and atheism through academia, the media, and popular culture; we have seduced them into sin and made them, as Ben Franklin wrote, "more corrupt and vicious, [so] they have more need of masters." For sure, masters will be one's lot if he has not mastered himself.

And this inner anarchy has outward manifestations: the imagery of pagan barbarism. Like primitive tribesmen, the young today deface themselves with tattoos and body piercings; the tramp stamp has become a stamp of youth-generation membership, while even large earlobe rings, something the West previously reserved to Discovery Channel documentaries, are now worn. And this physiognomy correlates with a certain voting pattern. Do you know what it is?

Speaking of voting patterns, for my atheist friends…

"It is when a people forget God that tyrants forge their chains" — Patrick Henry

Like many reading this, I once was that rare breed: a conservative agnostic. And, like so many who bristle when I now promote faith, I probably didn't realize how rare I was — and always would be.

Fox News alluded to this when trying to explain Obama's win, pointing out that religiously unaffiliated people are 20 percent of the U.S. for the first time ever. And does a poll showing that this burgeoning group of Americans favors Obama surprise you? It shouldn't. There is a strong atheism-statism correlation the world over, which is why it's no coincidence that "conservatives" in heavily secular Western Europe are simpatico with our liberals. Take note of this before you cheer the diminution of faith and fancy it can be replaced with Ayn Randism. Without the Christian right, there is no right at all.

So where do we go from here? First, we must stop rationalizing and look truth in the eye. There are no national ballot-box solutions, and America's winter is nigh. And will we, as all civilizations eventually do, soon go the way of ancient Rome? It's possible. Remember, however, that when Rome fell there were still people living in her lost lands. They still had to forge societies. And some did a better job than others.

And what of the immediate future? Well, I'll write more about that in the coming months. For now I'll leave it at this: what would you do if you were part of an organization whose leadership became ever more tyrannical and intransigent?

We must focus on our states and localities, on uncompromisingly doing the right thing within them. Are you with me? Because all I can say is that if I were a governor, I would certainly make news. What else can you do when caught in the course of human events?